Category: parents today

How Long Do I Keep This Stuff?

Like most kids their age, The Things love to make art projects.? Coloring, painting, collages, and many other works of junk art they produce in preschool.? Tape a piece of yarn to a popsicle stick and, presto, it’s a fishing rod.

Last weekend we went to Home Depot’s Kids Workshop.? Once a month they have ready to assemble wood projects where the kids hammer, sand, glue, hammer, and hammer.? Did I mention there is a lot hammering?? It gets quite loud, but it’s a fun outing and it’s free.

This week we made flag holders.? I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with them.? I guess we can paint them this weekend.? But then can I throw them away?

What about the dozens of projects they bring home from preschool each week?? Sure, there are the one or two which are worth hanging on the refrigerator or in my office.? But then there are also many works entitled “Three Scribbles on a Piece of Paper”.? Often, the preschool gives them recycled office printouts to write on, so it isn’t even a clean piece of paper.

How long before it’s ok to throw this stuff away?? What will my kids think when they find one in the garbage?

Parenting Mystery Solved

The parenting mystery is solved.? There were several partial correct answers, but monoceros came closest.? The garbage can wasn’t a difficult one to guess.? It’s an obivous object of interest to little kids.

The key in my situation is that Thing 3 has just learned to walk, so objects that used to be out of his reach, like the top of a garbage can, are now within his grasp.? He likes to open and close the cover.? Stick his hands in.? Take garbage out.? And, as I caught him in the act in this picture, he likes to put non-trash items into the garbage, so we search for hours for missing toys and cups. Continue reading Parenting Mystery Solved

Parenting Poll of the Week – Kids And Happiness

I read an interesting article that suggests parents are less likely to report being happy than the childless.

In Daniel Gilbert’s 2006 book “Stumbling on Happiness,” the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child?and increases only when the last child has left home.

No group of parents?married, single, step or even empty nest?reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It’s such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they’re not

I’m not sure how to take these results. I suppose it’s up to the individual. Certainly, anyone who wants to have kids but can’t for whatever reason, won’t be very happy.

I can also see how people with kids are subjected to stresses – money, time, sleep – that the childless are not. If stress level is the measure of happiness, then kids aren’t going to help that measure.

To borrow from William Jefferson Clinton, it depends on what the meaning of the word happy is.

[poll=22]

Parenting Poll of the Week – Bike Helmets

When I was a kid, we didn’t wear bike helmets. No one did. I don’t even remember seeing bike helmets sold in stores. We also didn’t wear seat belts in cars. We were idiots.

Today I wear a seat belt and use a bike helmet. It never would occur to my kids that people don’t do both of these, all the time. And that’s a good thing. But there are still non-believers out there, I guess.

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Parenting Poll of the Week – Father’s Day

Dads are used to being the Rodney Dangerfield of parents. We don’t get no respect. Our culture is filled with reminders like Parenting Magazine’s tagline: “What matters to moms”.

Father’s Day provides the ultimate salt in the wound. BusinessWeek reports that in 2005, consumers spent $11 billion on Mother’s Day vs $8 billion on Father’s Day.

Take a guess when is the busiest collect call day of the year. Yup, we make dads foot the bill to talk to their kids on Father’s Day.

Personally, I don’t need or expect a big production on Father’s Day. Just let me stay in bed until 7am, eat my meals sitting down at a table, and let me watch the last hour of the U.S. Golf Open.

I suspect most of my audience will vote for “Equal” in the poll. I also expect there will be some, probably the dads, who say Mother’s Day is the bigger holiday. I doubt there will be any votes for Father’s Day as the bigger holiday.

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What Were These Parents Thinking?

Thing 1 plays on a soccer team. At this age, it’s more of an organized play time than an actual soccer game. But he really enjoys it. I’m sure it’s a hint of what my life will become in a few years as all three kids get into it.

Each week, it is one parent’s job to bring the snack for the team. Bags of crackers, cookies, or pretzels are the norm. This week, the parent decided to bring frozen fruit flavored ice push ups. It’s like a popsicle, except smaller, fatter, and harder to open without making a mess. Especially when it is half melted from sitting in a cooler for an hour with not enough ice.

All the other parents cringed when they saw the team emerge from the snack huddle with frozen treats in hand. The kids loved it for about 6 seconds. That’s how long it takes for the popsicle to be pushed up too far and fall on the grass.

Maybe it is this parent’s way of playing a joke on the rest of us. Ha ha ha. Very funny.

Popsicle

Parenting Poll Of The Week – Does Spanking Work?

Last week I went to Red Robin for lunch. Sitting in the booth next to us was a toddler girl, maybe 2 or 3 years, with her mom. The girl kept standing up and turning around to our table, like toddlers do, but it wasn’t what I would call particularly bad behavior. Believe me, I have seen bad table behavior.

The mom was in a bad mood and wanted the girl to sit in her seat and wait patiently for the food to come. After asking demanding she sit down, the mom said very sternly:

“If you don’t sit down now, I will spank you right here in the middle of the restaurant and everyone will see!”

I wasn’t surprised that, to a toddler, the threat of being humiliated in public would have no effect. I mean, my toddler thinks nothing of skipping, dancing, or singing in public places. Or of being naked while doing those things.

We don’t spank our kids. It’s not so much because I am morally against it. I just don’t see how it actually works in disciplining kids. This mom could have had much better results if she had thought to bring some simple toys or snacks for her kid. Or maybe get up and walk around until the food was there.

Clearly, the spanking method she was using was not effective. I don’t have any problem with parents being allowed to spank their kids. As long as it doesn’t cross the line to abuse, they have the right. I just don’t see how it can work.

[poll=18]